Dust resurgence in protoplanetary disks due to planetesimal-planet interactions
Abstract
Observational data on the dust content of circumstellar disks show that the median dust content in disks around pre-main sequence stars in nearby star forming regions seem to increase from about 1 Myr to about 2 Myr, and then decline with time. This behaviour challenges the models where the small dust grains steadily decline by accumulating into larger bodies and drifting inwards on a short timescale (less than about 1 Myr). In this Letter we explore the possibility to reconcile this discrepancy in the framework of a model where the early formation of planets dynamically stirs the nearby planetesimals and causes high energy impacts between them, resulting in the production of second-generation dust. We show that the observed dust evolution can be naturally explained by this process within a suite of representative disk-planet architectures.
- Publication:
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arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- February 2022
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.2202.13891
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2202.13891
- Bibcode:
- 2022arXiv220213891M
- Keywords:
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- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 9 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication on ApJL